Circuit Britain

My mum’s career was in cartography. She’s drawn maps for the London Borough of Barnet and had many others printed in Geographical Magazine over the course of several years. She also drew them for fun, her illustrated scrapbook of travels around Peru and Bolivia are filled with hand-painted map masterpieces. She is a huge influence on my love of maps and drawing maps. Once interested in motor sport, I would begin doodling track layouts and maps anywhere I could. All my old school books are littered with squiggly shapes that, to the untrained eye, just look like squiggly shapes. But those of us in the know can quickly see what they are!

Starting the year as I mean to go on – getting back into drawing maps – this post brings together my love of maps and motorsport. “Circuit Britain” is based on a simplified outline of the British Isles, and within its boundaries contains 3 pit complexes and a total of 6 possible layouts. As requested on Twitter showing off the initial sketch, also included in the final design is a karting circuit shaped like Northern Ireland. The original sketch was drawn over a year ago and below is a brand new ‘aerial photography’* version. There are several more sketches in the series, including circuits based on the geographic outlines of the United States and Japan. I intend to realise those over the coming months.

* Imagery from around the outskirts of the circuit borrowed from imagery on Google Maps. Prizes for guessing where.